School Dayz
by CornishGirl
Summary: Pre-Series fluff ficlet, set during Sam's freshman year at Stanford. A/N: It's just a gorgeous day outside in a college town, and I thought about Sam at school and far away - he thinks - from the life of a hunter. Or not. Because big bro is watching.


He was loosey-goosey and happy, ambling down the sidewalk after class. Gorgeous Califiornia day, with just enough moisture in the air to keep Palo Alto and Stanford comfortable, rather than baking hot like Southern California.

He'd aced the Mass Communications Law and Ethics essay exam, falling back on a natural gift for BS-ing, even though the course did interest him. Just two had topped the class, he and another guy, an old man who'd returned to college just because he wanted to. So now he was free until an elective anthro class late in the day, content under the sun, surrounded by trees and foliage and other students who were so far removed from what his life had been that it was almost difficult to remember he'd been hip-deep in blood, sometimes. Blood, and ichor, and goo, and other unmentionable bodily fluids.

But he was here now, and free of it all. Yes, he missed his father, who—at a distance—no longer seemed like such a bad guy; whose brand of tough Marine love was harder than most, but it had kept them all alive. And he missed his brother, who had actually been more of a father than John Winchester, always there for Sammy when John was off hunting things, killing things, and saving people.

Jessica Moore. Yup. Wanted to get up close and personal with that lovely, lively lady.

"Sam! _Sam!_"

And so he stopped thinking about Jess, whom he wanted to know much better than he did, and gazed down upon the two girls who were Jess's friends, and who knew very well what he wanted. They'd all contested briefly for his interest, but the two ladies—Rebecca and Sunny—had figured out where his interest lay early on and had become friends as opposed to anything more. He liked that. He'd spent most of his formative school years not knowing anyone very well, because they were constantly uprooted. And how did you tell schoolkids that monsters were real? You just didn't. So really, there was nothing to talk about. At all.

Except with Dean, who knew. Who understood.

But Dean wasn't here, and neither was his father, and he was free of all that shit.

He grinned down at the girls. "Free to be!" he announced, arms spread from his sides.

Both blond, blue-eyed, young, and gorgeous. Just like Jess. They smiled up at him.

And then he heard it. Registered the sound. It was low, and it was deep, and it was a rumble like a lion purring, reverberating in his bones. He'd grown up on that sound, knew it intimately. It was unmistakable.

But—here? At Stanford?

No.

But he knew Baby's song.

There on the sidewalk next to the street, he turned from Jess's friends to the asphalt, registering all the bikes, the other cars. And there it was. There _she_ was.

"Hey Sammy! Hey! Wanna go for a ride?"

He was hallucinating. Wasn't he?

But he saw the big green eyes laughing at him, the head ducked just enough so he could gaze out from under the shining black roof, and the broad shoulders, the leather jacket, spikey hedgehog hair. And the million dollar, megawatt, toothpaste ad, movie star grin.

No. No. Here?

"Hey Sammy!"

And the girls chorused, "'Sammy?'" Because they knew him as Sam.

Then Sunny said, "Holy shit. Who _is_ that guy?"

Baby still rumbled right next to him. Sam scowled. The white-toothed grin broadened. "Just checking!" he called. "Was in town, thought I'd drop by. Adios!"

And just like that, the Impala tooled on down the street, losing herself in a field of Asian dreams and German engineering. It was Stanford, after all. Beamers, Mercedes, Porsches. Lexii.

"My my my," Rebecca said, and as one she and Sunny turned from watching the car depart to fixing him with wide-eyed, questioning stares.

Sam sighed. "My brother."

"_That_ was your brother?" Sunny asked. "Really?"

"Really."

"Oh. Oh, honey." Sunny tucked herself tight into his side, hooking arms around his right. "You _will_ get us an introduction, won't you?"

"Is he at Stanford, too?" Rebecca asked.

He wanted to say, _Dean doesn't even have his high school diploma_, since all he'd managed, in the midst of killing things, was a GED. But that wasn't fair, and he knew it; knew his brother was smarter than most in ways others could not comprehend. It came out of books, all right; just not the kinds of books people read at Stanford.

"No," he said instead. "I guess he's just in town, like he said."

And why was that? Palo Alto was not a hotbed of supernatural activity. At least, as far as Sam knew. He hadn't researched that aspect. He was here for _school_. And a new way of life.

Dean was checking on him.

Part of him was angry. Part of him was annoyed.

Part of him felt that little glow in his gut, the knowledge that despite the fact Dean had let him go far more easily than his father, he still cared.

'Just checking,' Dean had called.

Because he _cared_.

Sam smiled. Looked down into two sets of blue eyes. "I've got his number if you want it. But—we're very, very different."

Sunny laughed at him. "Sometimes different is good!"

And he thought, _You have no idea_. But all he did was smile more broadly. "Yeah. Sometimes it is."

Baby was long gone. But he heard her rumble still, in the back of his head. Saw that megawatt grin.

_~ end ~ _


End file.
